08 November 2010

The Climate Fix, Typos and Errata

There are a few typos and errata in the book. This post is to keep track of them in case there is an opportunity to correct them in the future. This post will be updated as necessary and will be linked from the main book page. Thanks to all for eagle eyes!

p, x, "expect by a few countries" should be "except by a few countries"

p. 11, "While land-surface management is a potentially valuable short-term tool for sequestering carbon dioxide (as well as for achieving other goals such as preserving forests, to achieve low atmospheric stabilization targets). . . " has a misplaced end parenthesis, and should be instead "While land-surface management is a potentially valuable short-term tool for sequestering carbon dioxide (as well as for achieving other goals such as preserving forests), to achieve low atmospheric stabilization targets . . ."

p. 116, "The grand total? More than 12,000 nuclear power stations worth of effort" -- this number should be 8,500 (all else is OK in that section)

pp. 174 and 196, Hans Joachim Schellnhuber's name is misspelled in two locations.

9 comments:

page 70:The carbon intensity of the economy is represented by the product of energy consumed per unit of GDP, called energy intensity, and the amount of carbon emitted per unit of energy, called carbon intensity"

On first reading this sounded circular, that carbon intensity was being defined in terms of carbon intensity. I could work it out by studying table 3.1 carefully and rereading the sentence but it is unfortunate that the same phrase carbon intensity is being used to explain two different concepts.

p. 72 Fig 3.1The vertical axis is not labelled and I'm not sure why the horizontal axis starts at 100. Where are the billion and more people living under $2 a day on this graph?

The repeated use of the phrase "carbon intensity" can be confusing, but it is already in wide use, so I simply adopted convention.

p. 72, Fig 3.1

The explanation is found in the text on p. 72, but this could be clearer, I agree. It shows global distribution in income in standardized 1999 PPP dollars, for three years. The vertical axis is simply the proportion at each income. A dollar per day would be at $365 on the x-axis, but since it is 1999 PPP dollars, perhaps closer to $1,000.

This isn't a typo or an error, but rather an unaddressed discrepancy. On page 40 you cite a Gallup poll that found that only 35% of the people in India are aware of climate change which is very credible in light of how many people there don't have electricity. Then, on page 41, you show a chart from the World Bank that indicates that 95% have an opinion of climate change and that 62% think it is very serious.

I looked at the World Bank's report. In a footnote on the last page, it states, "In India, a face-to-face survey was conducted in urban and rural areas in 14 of the largest Indian states; these states comprise 77 percent of India’s population. The sample is 50 percent urban, India’s population is approximately 30 percent urban."

This seems to indicate that it is a reasonably representative survey of the population, which is at odds with the Gallup poll. I can only conclude, however, that this does not reflect the entire population.

The purpose of the World Bank's report seems to be a political one; to show that even in developing countries, a majority of the population is worried about the climate. However, I expect that those without electricity have more immediate concerns.

Good points…I think we can all agree that the IPCC has been almost the exclusive driving force behind the creation of the concern (real or alleged) over climate change.

So long as we are discussing polling data…Unscientific, but very broad based, polling from Scientific American (still in progress) currently shows that 84% consider the IPCC to be“a corrupt organization, prone to groupthink, with a political agenda”.

Click here for the back story, to participate in the poll and to examine reasons why the IPCC is no longer seen as credible.